


the sacrament of love

by vindicatedtruth (behindtintedglass)



Category: American Idol RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-18
Updated: 2016-02-18
Packaged: 2018-05-21 10:52:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6048730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/behindtintedglass/pseuds/vindicatedtruth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They found their true religion in each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the sacrament of love

They hide it from themselves, first. 

Cook pretends that the grin that lights up his face isn’t always directly correlated to each time Archie enters the room.  He tells himself that it’s just the giddiness in making a new friend—and a very unlikely one at that—in this whirlwind of  _Idol._ He pretends that he’s drawn to Archie for no other reason than it’s just the way the kid is, as a person; people of practically all ages and genders and  _religions_  flock to his side, in the same way that children are drawn to angels.

For once, though, this kid is the real deal.  He isn’t pretending to be modest, or simply playing nice; Archie is the very first person Cook has ever encountered who is one hundred percent  _genuine_.  The boy adamantly refuses to see how the world can be anything but  _good,_ and seems to make it his personal mission to make that unfounded belief a reality.  He is so innocent and guileless that Cook can clearly see how that gentle heart can so easily be taken advantage of.

And so he sticks himself to the kid’s side, and he pretends that the sudden protectiveness that overtakes him every time Archie falls under unwarranted and unfair critique is only because he doesn’t want the world to break one of the brightest souls Cook has ever seen.

Archie, for his part, finds himself pleasantly surprised at how he isn’t averse to Cook’s touch at all.  Usually, he considers it such an invasion of privacy every time people get into his personal space, but with Cook, he simply feels…  _safe_.  

He knows that his devout and sheltered upbringing is the giant elephant in the room that everyone doesn’t talk about, because they  _can’t_ understand him, and that fact makes them uncomfortable. To be fair, Cook doesn’t completely understand him either.  The only difference is… Cook accepts him anyway—unnconditionally, and without question. And that is… incredibly  _new_ to Archie, and he tells himself that it’s the only reason why he feels such a strong surge of affection for the man. 

There’s a tinge of admiration there, too; Archie has always been awed at how raw and unbridled Cook can be—the man is unashamedly passionate in everything he does.  Archie watches Cook perform, night after night, mesmerised by how the man isn’t afraid to wear his heart on his sleeve every time he gets on that  _Idol_ stage as he channels his passion into his gritty vocals and his spellbinding gaze.  

It makes Archie shiver—and if sometimes he finds himself wondering about what kind of person can inspire such…  _ardour_ in Cook, Archie quickly pushes those thoughts firmly to the back of his mind.

 

* * *

 

They hide it from each other, next.

Sometimes, when he listens with rapt attention to the stories Cook shares about his experiences before  _Idol,_ Archie can’t help but feel small.  The more he learns about Cook, the more he realises that there is so much he  _doesn’t_ know about the world, and it makes Archie feel…  _ashamed_ , somehow.  He’s beginning to see how he can be seen as gullible and naïve—and it’s not far from the truth, if he’s being honest with himself—and he doesn’t want  _Cook_ to see him that way.  He doesn’t want to lose Cook’s respect, his care, his  _affection_ … and it makes Archie realise, suddenly, that he doesn’t want to lose Cook  _at all._

He doesn’t know how he’ll able to survive the chaos of  _Idol_ without him.  It strikes Archie then, with such fearful intensity, how Cook has suddenly become  _important_ to him.  Losing the  _Idol_ title seems to be an incredibly small price to pay if it means Cook gets to stay just a little bit longer.

It’s why he finds himself rejoicing more when Ryan calls out Cook’s name than he does when his own name is called, because whenever Cook is declared safe from elimination, Archie breathes a little easier as he finds himself safe from heartbreak for another day. And whenever Cook smiles at him and pulls him close, Archie now grips him a little tighter, unwilling to let him  _leave_  as he swallows back the words sticking at the back of his throat: ‘Please,  _please_  don’t let me go.’

And Cook, for his part, feels half out of his mind every time he  _holds_ Archie like this, because he is now unable to deny to himself how his affection for his dearest friend has now blossomed into full-blown  _attraction_ —with Archie having the absolute  _worst_ combination of being an  _underage Mormon boy._ It makes Cook feel like he’s corrupting something pure, like he’s a sinner holding something sacrosanct—like he’s having a glimpse of heaven even as he’s being locked out from it.

It doesn’t stop him, however, from being unapologetically selfish.  He relishes the way Archie sighs against his chest, melting in his arms as if Cook is his one solid source of strength, and it makes Cook feel simultaneously humbled and empowered to be the caretaker of this beautiful boy’s heart—even as Cook bitterly accepts that it doesn’t belong to  _him._ It is enough for him to know that someone as  _divine_  as Archie can find an ordinary man like him worth cherishing, too.  

It makes Cook believe, whenever Archie chooses to  _stay_ in his arms, that heaven can understand a bond like theirs.

And if loving Archie means falling from grace, then Cook will walk through the gates of hell just to be with him like this.

 

* * *

 

It becomes easy, afterward, to hide it from the rest of the world. 

They’ve both realised, sometime between the first heartfelt confession and the first night tangled in each other’s limbs, that this is something that they might have to hide, because what they have is so rare, so precious, and so  _sacred_ , that neither of them are willing to let the rest of the world take this away from them and  _destroy_ it. And so they vowed—between heavy, breathless, desperate kisses—that while they will always remain true to each other, the rest world cannot be privy to this fragile truth they hold. 

As it turns out, however, they discover that they don’t even have to lie.

It becomes easy to keep touching Archie like this, because Cook is a naturally affectionate man who is very tactile with the people he’s close to.  No one bats an eye at the way his hand is always branded on the small of Archie’s back, or the way he keeps Archie tucked firmly close to him whenever they find themselves surrounded by the boy’s numerous admirers.  It becomes easy to keep speaking fondly of Archie like this, because Cook has always been open about his deep-seated love for his family—especially his siblings—so it’s only natural for people to interpret his love for Archie as  _brotherly._

It becomes easy for them to be glued to each other’s sides, because their joint promotions as the  _American Idol_ and  _Runner-up_ requires them to be together all the time anyway. It becomes easy to freely write songs about love when no one ever asks them who inspires these poetic lyrics, because people see the image of the playboy rocker and the pious pop star and will never, in a million years, think that these two completely opposite artists are, in fact, singing these songs to each other.

And because they have always openly demonstrated their love for everyone else—their families and friends, their colleagues in the industry, their fans and their followers—it becomes easy to declare their love for each other too, and proudly tell it to the rest of the world, because no one realises that with each other, their words carry a different meaning, a different  _weight_ , and that their “bond that goes way beyond” runs much,  _much_ deeper than the platonic connection everyone chooses to see.

And it becomes easy for Archie to remain true to his faith—in himself, in the world, and in the God he has never stopped believing in—because he has found his perfect temple inside the strong heart and the beautiful soul of one David Roland Cook. 

Archie’s  _true_ religion is  _love_ , after all.

And he has finally found his heaven, here, with Cook.


End file.
